Best gems for resto shaman in MoP?

[Deleted]

I was wandering which gems will be best for red sockets in MoP. Now many healers instead of 50int gems put in red sockets 25int 25spirit and in blue 50spirit, I've seen many paladins, priests and driuids with but not many shamans. Also people playing beta are saying it should be right way to gem your fresh level 90 character. I've read few guides for resto shaman and noone ever mentioned putting purple gems in red sockets atm. What do you think about? Is it worth to try purple gems instead of red int gems?

[Deleted]

Best option would be to just gem full intellect and reforge for spirit where you need it. Intellect is better than any other throughput stat so if you can get the spirit you need without having to gem for it then you should. Beyond that (if all your items have spirit/reforged for spirit and still need more) then just gem as much as you personally need. Its going to be very much a "it depends on your gear" type thing. If you are running oom, and can't get any more spirit without dropping int, start grabbing purples in any blue sockets you have until you are okay, then if you start to find your pooling too much mana start dropping spirit for more throughput. Its not really a cut and dry "Do it like this or your bad" choice really, unlike DPS.

[mjolnrik]

I was wandering which gems will be best for red sockets in MoP. Now many healers instead of 50int gems put in red sockets 25int 25spirit and in blue 50spirit, I've seen many paladins, priests and driuids with but not many shamans. Also people playing beta are saying it should be right way to gem your fresh level 90 character. I've read few guides for resto shaman and noone ever mentioned putting purple gems in red sockets atm. What do you think about? Is it worth to try purple gems instead of red int gems?

Im quite sure the best gems will probably always stay the same, pure int unless the socket bonus is int and half the amount of the gem or more. The best gem will ofc be the 500 int legendary gem for the weapon

Atm even with the nerf of TC, resto shamans seem very hard to run out of mana with, idk about in mop but spirit has never been a good stat for me, and getting mroe wud just be wasted atm

[Deleted]

Im quite sure the best gems will probably always stay the same, pure int unless the socket bonus is int and half the amount of the gem or more. The best gem will ofc be the 500 int legendary gem for the weapon

Atm even with the nerf of TC, resto shamans seem very hard to run out of mana with, idk about in mop but spirit has never been a good stat for me, and getting mroe wud just be wasted atm

Thats because Intellect is a regen stat too, or at least used to be. Now it only gives spellpower and thats it. If you have enough spirit from your items then thats fine but if you don't have a enough spirit on your gear you will definitely run oom if you just spam intellect. The swaying point is what is 'enough spirit'. Thats where the player by player differences come in.

[Slonato]

Remember, secondary stats (for resto-spirit/crit/haste/mastery) get double the itemization on gems that primary stats (int/agi/str) do, making the choice to gem for secondaries or socket bonuses a little more tempting.

[Keiyra]

Remember, secondary stats (for resto-spirit/crit/haste/mastery) get double the itemization on gems that primary stats (int/agi/str) do, making the choice to gem for secondaries or socket bonuses a little more tempting.

Yeah, if regen is insufficient the Int/Crit and Int/Spirit, or full Spirit for blue sockets will certainly be options to consider.

[Deleted]

Remember, secondary stats (for resto-spirit/crit/haste/mastery) get double the itemization on gems that primary stats (int/agi/str) do, making the choice to gem for secondaries or socket bonuses a little more tempting.

Pretty much this. You will more than likely be gemming for Int/spirit combos since there is just so much spirit available from gems.

[Deleted]

Maybe even crit/spirit for yellow slots if we really want to minmax regen without losing socket bonus.

[Crashdummy]

Ill probably use Spirit for blues, Crit for yellows and Int from reds at the start of the expansion. And then ill see how the expansion goes by and where i'm getting short of (mana regen? thoughput?)

[Deleted]

Ill probably use Spirit for blues, Crit for yellows and Int from reds at the start of the expansion. And then ill see how the expansion goes by and where i'm getting short of (mana regen? thoughput?)

If you did this, then you should be using purples/oranges/green gems. One of those stats is going to be the most useful for you. There is no reason to go flat Yellow in yellow slots, flat blue in blue slots and flat red in red slots. If spirit is more useful to you than crit, and int is than 2x as useful to you as spirit you should be going

Red: Int
Yellow: Int/Crit (unless the socket bonus is not enough to make up the big disparity between Int and Crit, in which case you would go flat Int)
Blue: Int/Spirit

At no point are you ever going to use more than 1 kind of flat gem. It may be you go flat Spirit, then in reds go Int/Spirit, and in yellows go Spirit/Crit or Flat Spirit based off the value of the socket, but in no situation would you go flat X and flat Y, let alone flat gems in all 3 socket types.

The only situation where this is wrong is where more than one stat is exactly the same value to you and you want to keep them all balanced. The likelihood of more than 2 stats being of equal value to you in all situations though is very minute.

[Crashdummy]

If you did this, then you should be using purples/oranges/green gems. One of those stats is going to be the most useful for you. There is no reason to go flat Yellow in yellow slots, flat blue in blue slots and flat red in red slots. If spirit is more useful to you than crit, and int is than 2x as useful to you as spirit you should be going

Red: Int
Yellow: Int/Crit (unless the socket bonus is not enough to make up the big disparity between Int and Crit, in which case you would go flat Int)
Blue: Int/Spirit

At no point are you ever going to use more than 1 kind of flat gem. It may be you go flat Spirit, then in reds go Int/Spirit, and in yellows go Spirit/Crit or Flat Spirit based off the value of the socket, but in no situation would you go flat X and flat Y, let alone flat gems in all 3 socket types.

Ill probably use int/crit in yellow yes, but at least at the start of the expansion i will use flat blues and flat reds. Spirit is more important to us than any other healer because of Mana Tide, so the minor int gain wont be worth from my point of view and thinking in the group benefit.

[Deleted]

Ill probably use int/crit in yellow yes, but at least at the start of the expansion i will use flat blues and flat reds. Spirit is more important to us than any other healer because of Mana Tide, so the minor int gain wont be worth from my point of view and thinking in the group benefit.

If you value spirit more than Int then you should be using Int/Spirit in your red sockets as well, unless there is some magic spirit number (which there could be) your aiming for that just so happens to exactly fit when you fill all your blues with spirit and reforge all too spirit (which is a pretty small chance to be the case).

[Crashdummy]

If you value spirit more than Int then you should be using Int/Spirit in your red sockets as well, unless there is some magic spirit number (which there could be) your aiming for that just so happens to exactly fit when you fill all your blues with spirit and reforge all too spirit (which is a pretty small chance to be the case).

At the start of the expansion yes, spirit will probably be more valuable than int, but i dont want to get int starved either.

if after gemming like i said i need more mana regen yes i could probably change flat red ints to int/spi but initially my gemming will be as i said:

Flat Int reds
Int/Crit yellow
Flat spirit blues.

[Sarevokcz]

If you value spirit more than Int then you should be using Int/Spirit in your red sockets as well, unless there is some magic spirit number (which there could be) your aiming for that just so happens to exactly fit when you fill all your blues with spirit and reforge all too spirit (which is a pretty small chance to be the case).

is there actually any MoP math that shows how powerful output stats are for resto? because for gems, I doubt int will be the best output choice, since primary stat gems have only half of a secondary (and is not a regen tool anymore.)

[Chimaera]

Whether you gem for Intellect/Mastery/Crit or Spirit is going to depend on whether you prioritize sustained healing over everything, or you want to get a blend of both burst and sustained, and also whether the content allows having additional mana to equate to being able to cast more meaningful heals. I do not see gemming for Intellect primarily at this point because the double itemization actually makes Mastery/Crit stronger for throughput.

With Spirit getting twice as much itemization, I personally expect to gem for spirit the entire expansion. I find having additional mana to heal more aggressively of greater value than adding a few % output to each heal.

[Deleted]

I think this pretty much sums up how the developers feel you should be gemming at least.

https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/sta...62997401526273

[Deleted]

At the start of the expansion yes, spirit will probably be more valuable than int, but i dont want to get int starved either.

if after gemming like i said i need more mana regen yes i could probably change flat red ints to int/spi but initially my gemming will be as i said:

Flat Int reds
Int/Crit yellow
Flat spirit blues.

Like I said, unless you value spirit and intellect exactly equally these gems don't make much sense, because if int is better you would go red int, purple int/spirit in blue slots, if spirit is better you would go spirit blue, purple int/spirit in red slots. In reality it seems unlikely you will find both stats equal in value, especially if you choose to go Int/Crit instead of Spirit/Crit for example.

is there actually any MoP math that shows how powerful output stats are for resto? because for gems, I doubt int will be the best output choice, since primary stat gems have only half of a secondary (and is not a regen tool anymore.)

Not that I know of off the top of my head. However, there will still be a best stat FOR YOU no matter what (well there is the rare situation where the stats are so close to equal its a non-issue, but due to the nature of healers and how varied encounters can be this almost never happens for healers). Either Int will be better than Haste/Crit/Mastery, or the extra secondary stats you get from gems will mean its better to take those over Int. That will always be the case. As for spirit there will be a sort of imaginary 'cap' on it at which point you don't need any more, and this cap will vary based on what content your playing, your fellow healers, your raid size and your gear (ie lots of haste on your gear = need more spirit). The likelihood of all these variables putting Int and Spirit exactly equal is very small.

[Table]

is there actually any MoP math that shows how powerful output stats are for resto? because for gems, I doubt int will be the best output choice, since primary stat gems have only half of a secondary (and is not a regen tool anymore.)

I have been doing some math on Int vs Secondary Stats and will post updated math soon, but what it is looking like is that Secondary Stats (Haste/Mastery/Crit) are better to gem for because they better throughput than Intellect at a 2 to 1 rate. At a 1 to 1 rate Int is much more powerful than any of the secondary stats. Socket bonuses are still very powerful so what it looks like for the best throughput is:

Red: 80 Int,160 Crit/Mastery - Artful Vermilion Onyx / Artful Vermilion Onyx
Yellow: 320 Crit/Mastery - Smooth Sun's Radiance / Fractured Sun's Radiance
Blue: 160 Spirit, 160 Crit/Mastery - Misty Wild Jade / Zen Wild Jade

I am still working on the value of spirit when compared to throughput, but I would not be surprised if gemming for spirit was very viable.

[Tiberria]

From my experience with raid testing on Beta, Spirit is going to be the stat that is stacked, at least for the first 2 tiers. Even with the changes, Shaman have very dicey regen in level 90 raid testing, and I can tell you that straight up, mana longevity is the limiting factor in throughput.

INT has lost a huge amount of value, both because regen is more important at level 90 (and is more important than it even was at the start of T11 - because mana is tighter than that) and because it no longer provides any regen with the fixed mana pools. Basically, INT is the same as the old spell power stat was pre-Cata. In WoTLK, when spell power and INT were seperate stats, paladins and disc priests generally gemmed pure INT and Shaman generally gemmed pure Haste.

Also, the stat allocation for Spirit and other secondary stats is double what it is for INT and primary stats. Therefore, a blue quality gem is 320 Spirit or 160 INT. Given MoP mana regen mechanics, I don't think that INT is worth taking over Spirit at a 1:1 ratio. There is no way in hell it's worth taking over Spirit at a 0.5:1 ratio.

I strongly believe that the stat priority will be Spirit > Mastery/Crit > Intellect > Haste

Therefore, the optimal gemming will probably be:

-Blue Sockets - 320 Spirit
-Red Sockets - 80 INT, 160 Spirit
-Green Sockets - 160 Mastery, 160 Spirit

Or pure Spirit gems, ignoring some socket bonuses. Pandaren will be the best race choice (gives an effective +300 Spirit with the best available Spirit food), and Tailoring/Blacksmithing will be the strongest professions, because both give Spirit over INT options and result in the highest possible Spirit gain.

[Zues]

Agreeing with Tib here, you're going to want spirit as much as possible. Aim for the stacking spirit trinkets (darkmoon one and the other one from an actual raid whose details I totally forgot). Doing this will also benefit your other healer, which is always good. Start switching out for INT gems/ haste+mastery instead of spirit+secondary stat once you start feeling like you're comfortable with mana.